Four individual championships were obtained over the weekend at the West Hills tournament, paving the road moving forward to the Santa Ana tournament this Saturday.

Among the four was the 133-pound team captain Anthony Vargas, who bulldozed his way on to winning the finals.

Defeating all four of his opponents, Vargas felt that he had the toughest set of the bracket. He made emphasis on the the semi-final saying, out of the four, it was the most challenging.

“The guy that I wrestled in the semi-final was tougher than any other guy on the other side of the bracket[…] he gave me a way tougher match in the semi than I had in the finals[…] He was very explosive, he stayed in pretty good position, he had some nice shots,” he said.

Another first place champion was the 141-pound sophomore Richard Pocock, who was also victorious in all four of his matches.

Pocock said, “I felt good about [the tournament], it was kind of like gauging where I was at with all the other competitors and seeing what I needed to improve on. It was a good learning experience.”

He was able to critique his performance and prepare for the Santa Ana tournament, he said, “I just need to push the pace a little more.”

He went a little further detailing, “I need to be more on the offense and not being on defense, always initiating their movements, trying to get take downs even when I’m ahead.”

Also among the athletes who attended the tournament was the 125-pound freshmen Norberto Buenrostro, who was able to get second place. He forfeited the finals due to an injury. He didn’t feel too bad about it.

Buenrostro said, “I had to default in the finals due to an injury. I landed on my wrist and coach didn’t want to risk anything. It doesn’t matter now, what maters now is state and that’s what we’re working toward.”

He’s confident that his wrist won’t be a bother for him in the up coming Santa Ana tournament.

“[My wrist] was just a little sprained,” he said, “But it’s in the past now, puts some tape on it and wrestle.”

The fourth champion of the tournament was the 285-pound freshmen David Zavala, who was able to gain five wins that day.

This was Zavala’s first wrestling mactch since highschool. Despite not having wrestled in two years, he still went on to win his first tournament in his first college tournament.

Zavala stated.“I felt great, being two years out of wrestling it was fun to go out there for my first tournament and win. I didn’t win that many my senior year [of high school] so it felt good,”

He went on to express a difficult match he had at the tournament. “The semi-finals was the hardest match I’ve ever wrestled in my life, I was so tired and gassed I need to definitely work on that, that was the hardest one.”

Zavala may not be competing come Saturday due to a “tweaked” wrist, however, that won’t be stopping him from working on his cardio in the upcoming days.

Coach Don Garriott was keen on what he saw at the West Hills tournament.

He said, “I thought it was a good tournament for us, we got to see some of the Northern stronger teams, so we got to match up with them.

“Coming out of that tournament, winning the tournament as a whole was great for us as far as where we are in the season.”

Garriott is looking forward to future competitions, he wants to wait till after the Santa Ana tournament to work really hard on the team’s cardio before going into the next set of competitions.